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How long before this gets used in a domestic violence case?
It is a possible vulnerability but not as big a vulnerability as you might expect.
The systems used for caller ID are completely separate from the ones used for billing and AID the system used by call centers to discover the number of the person calling.
The ability to conceal caller Id is really a hoax, yes you can stop private subscribers knowing who called, but you can’t stop the phone spammers you are actually worried about.
If there was an incident involving one of these services then it would still be possible to reconstruct who talked to whom from the SS7 logs kept for billing. It is not my area of expertise but I would suspect that the caller Id concealment company would be required to keep certain records as well. If they did not that would be discovered the first time they caused a problem.
Ok. What is going on is the use of SID to replace the ANI. SID stands for station ID and is part of the setup message that a directly connected PBX sends to the phone company switch. ANI is automatic number identification and is usually the billing number and is (usually/always?) assigned in the setup message by the phone company switch. The combination used to be called “Sid/Annie” in my times at Bell Labs. The above commentor is correct that both are placed in the billing record and both are placed in the call setup messages. It would be interesting to know which one is used for 911. Each end telco switch can be programmed to display either. I can’t remember all the options, but it went something like 1: SID in preference to ANI if both present, 2: ANI in preference to SID if both present, 3: SID only, 4: ANI only, 5: Neither. I don’t think this feature would help in a domestic violence situation unless you wanted to fool someone into picking up a phone call that they wouldn’t normally do so. I don’t see how that is different than making the call from a payphone.
Notice that you call a toll free number. You can’t hide your phone number when calling a toll-free number, even if you turn off caller id.
I’m not sure whether or not these companies are going to try to fight a warrant, but it seems like a losing cause. But I’m (obviously) not a lawyer.
Of course, making sure that people know that there are these spoofers out there and that the phone call may not be from who you think is the key.